Defense Hawks Offer Half an Answer on Libya

Sens. John McCain R-Ariz., Joe Lieberman I-Conn. and Lindsey Graham R-S.C. split with some House Republicans over further aid for Egypt and Libya on account of recent events in both countries.

They condemned the killing of U.S. citizens at the U.S. embassy, saying the extremists don’t represent the populations of both countries. “It would really dishonor the death of these four if we pulled out of Libya and stopped helping their new government,” Lieberman said in a speech on the Senate floor Wednesday.

Meanwhile, budget hawks are looking for ways to trim spending. Referencing a pending continuing resolution to keep the government running, Rep. Jeff Landry (R-La.) said, “It would show a tremendous amount of leadership from this administration, in light of the recent developments, if the president were to come back and demand that the amount of money that is in the for Libya and Egypt be stripped. That would be tremendous leadership.”

Neither side seems capable of offering a workable solution for Libya, or Egypt, as long as Barack Obama is in the White House.

If extremists in both countries, and across the Middle-east as a whole, are able to manipulate political processes to seize control of the various levers of power, it serves no good purpose to throw good money after bad, only to create less than true liberal democracies. At the same time, simply cutting and running from the Middle-east would only hasten any process whereby extremists seize power.

While truly free democracies in the Middle-east are in America’s best interests, it will take more than words and wishes to make them happen. As long as the Obama administration sees fit to take a series of half-measures, while putting more Americans at risk by meddling in the Middle-east without real resolve, the region is likely to remain a quagmire for America for some time to come.